


Count The Ways: To The End

by Masked_R



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: 1:35AM, Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: Blackbird, Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: Count The Ways, Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: Hide And Seek, Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: Room For One More, Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: Step Closer, Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: The Man In Room 1280, Five Nights At Freddy's: Fazbear Frights: To Be Beautiful, Five Nights At Freddys: Fazbear Frights: Lonely Freddy, Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights Series, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:29:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29786481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masked_R/pseuds/Masked_R
Summary: Millie longed for death, but when she came face to face with a murderous animatronic and barely escaped the fate she so desperately wished for, she set off with several others who experienced similar fates to stop the robots who almost made her wish come true.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12





	1. I Await Your Fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a sucker for a potential story

Millie hadn’t wanted much. She wanted to be alone when her family had shown up for Christmas, and so she hid in Grandpa’s shed. This turned out to be a terrible idea, and the “harmless machine” inside, turned out to be anything but. But at the time, she thought that hiding in the device was a great idea.

And then the door slammed shut.

“What the... “ She pushed on it. It didn’t open, and a pair of eyes above her whirred to life.

“ _ OH, YOU FOOL! _ ” A voice exclaimed, and Millie froze. The voice sounded cheerful, but not in a good way, like something mad and deranged.

“Who.. who’s there!” She said to the eyes.

“ _ WHO’S THERE?! I’M THERE OF COURSE, FUNTIME FREDDY! NOW, WE’RE GOING TO HAVE LOTS OF FUN! CHERISH IT NOW, BECAUSE IT’LL BE YOU LAST LIVING MOMENTS! _ ”

“Wh.. what?” Millie didn’t understand. This thing was talking to her and… threatening her? No, that couldn’t be right, it was just a machine.

“ _ ISN’T IT OBVIOUS, LAMB CHOP?! I’VE BEEN HERE FOR MONTHS AND I’M BORED OUT OF MY MIND! SITTING HERE LISTENING TO YOUR SOB STORY OF A LIFE IS NO FUN, SO I’M GOING TO DO WHAT I WAS CREATED TO DO! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU! _ ” Lamb chop? No, this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. This thing... Funtime Freddy, it was an inanimate object. It couldn’t hurt her. “ _ BUT Y’KNOW WHAT, KID?! I’M FEELING GENEROUS, AND I REALLY HAVE NO PREFERENCE OF HOW YOU SPEND YOUR LAST LIVING MOMENTS, SO I’M GONNA LET YOU CHOOSE HOW YOU DIE! HOWEVER YOU WANT AND I CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN! _ ”

“But I don’t want to die!” Millie explained. Funtime Freddy scoffed.

“ _ OH YEAH?! I’VE BEEN HERE FOR MONTHS, MILLIE. I’VE HEARD YOU “WOE IS ME” STORIES! I’VE HEARD YOUR FANTASIES OF A “DATE WITH DEATH”! WELL, TODAY’S YOUR LUCKY DAY, BECAUSE I’M HERE TO MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE! I GET TO KILL PEOPLE, AND YOU GET TO DIE! THIS IS A MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIP! _ ”

Millie had always played around with the idea of death, but that’s all it had ever been, playing around. She didn’t really want to die, that just seemed so final. But the robot was serious.

“What are my options?” she asked.

“ _ I’M GLAD YOU ASKED! _ ” Funtime Freddy replied gleefully, “ _ WELL, I COULD STARVE YOU, BUT THAT’S BORING, I WANT TO HAVE SOME ACTUAL FUN. ALSO, I CAN’T FREEZE YOU TO DEATH, YOUR GRANDPA WOULD NOTICE IF ALL THE HEATERS SUDDENLY TURNED OFF, SO I’M SORRY IF YOU REALLY HAD YOUR HEART SET ON THAT ONE! _ ” What terrified Millie was that this was the first time he sounded genuinely remorseful. He seriously was disappointed he wouldn’t be able to freeze her to death. “ _ I CAN STAB YOU, WHICH IS A VERY PAINFUL WAY TO GO! _ ” Millie would rather have avoided that. “ _ I COULD ELECTROCUTE YOU, DROWN YOU, BOIL YOU… AHA! I CAN BEHEAD YOU! _ ” His overwhelming positivity made Millie even more scared.

“Why beheading?” She asked cautiously.

“ _ WELL, IT'S THE ONLY ONE I CAN THINK OF THAT I HAVEN'T TRIED BEFORE! _ ”

“WHAT?” Millie screamed, “You’ve killed people before! You’re seriously going to kill me?!”

“ _ OF COURSE, LAMB CHOP! NOW, DO YOU WANT BEHEADED OR NOT?! IT’S A PRETTY PAINLESS WAY TO DIE! _ ” Millie weighed her options. If she had to die, painless sounded like a good idea.

“Ok,” She said, sadly.

“YES!” Funtime Freddy sounded positively ecstatic. “NOW, LET’S SEE, I HAVEN’T GOT MANY BEHEADING TOOLS HERE… OH, LOOK, YOUR GRANDPA HAS THIS METAL SHEET THING! IF I RAM THIS THROUGH ME, THEN IT’LL EASILY KILL YOU!” From inside, Millie braced for impact.

A second went by. Then two. Then three. She was still alive.

“Funtime Freddy?” she called cautiously.

“ _ WHAT?! I CAN’T MOVE! WHAT’S HAPPENING OUT THERE! _ ” The eyes on the inside of the machine turned around, leaving Millie in darkness, as they felt the machine begin to move. After a few seconds, the eyes appeared again, and the voice yelled, sounding nervous.

“ _ NO! THEY’VE CUT THE POWER! I CAN’T MOVE! _ ” The eyes looked down on Millie. “ _ LAMB CHOP! IF YOU WANT YOUR WISH TO BE A REALITY, THEN YOU HAVE TO BOOT ME UP AGAIN! _ ” The voice was getting quieter. “ _ KID, I NEED YOU TO! I’LL BE HERE! I AWAIT YOU FATE! _ ” At this, the eyes froze and the voice stopped entirely.

* * *

“Pete, can you help me with this?” Stanley whispered. They had to get the animatronic out of the garage before anyone noticed they were there.

“Sure thing, Stanley.” Pete replied, lifting one side of the animatronic. “Toby should’ve gotten the electricity off by now, so this thing won’t attack us.”

“FOOLS! YOUR EFFORTS ARE IN VAIN!” A high-pitched voice called from Stanley’s arm.

“Shut up, Minireena, you’re gonna get us caught!” Stanley scolded, lifting the other side of Funtime Freddy. “We need to get it to the van, Delilah should be able to get us away before anybody notices. We’ll take it back to Arthur and add it to the pile.” Just then, a loose roof tile swung down from the ceiling, barely missing Pete’s eye. Pete, however, seemed fine with this, and ignored it.

After a few seconds, Toby appeared through the door and helped them carry Funtime Freddy out to a van parked outside. None of them realised that there was a fourteen year-old girl locked inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm doing this now I guess. I have to say I've enjoyed these books and I just kinda thought, "What would happen is all these traumatized fellas came together." And then I wrote this. I have no idea how long this'll go on for and I have even less idea how the story will go, but please tell me what you think of the concept.
> 
> Next chapter: More Stuff Happens


	2. Toby And The Truck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Millie escapes Funtime Freddy to find herself in a truck with a boy her age, who has a large shadow looming over him.

Millie remained trapped inside Funtime Freddy for a few more hours, trying to get out. She eventually managed to escape by prying the door open with her bracelet, to find that she was no longer in her Grandpa’s workshop, but in some form of truck.

“Where am I?” She said to herself. Millie was used to being alone most of the time, and she felt that talking to herself helped her lay out her thoughts better. Her mother and father thought it was unnatural, but it was just how she thought.

He looked around the truck, and from the looks of things, Funtime Freddy was the only thing there. She could feel it moving from beneath her feet, but she didn’t know how far she was from her Grandpa’s house, but she wanted to go back.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?!”

Millie shrieked and turned around. Standing there was a kid who must have been around her age, and looked equally as dark and gloomy. He had bags under his eyes and was wearing a large black coat. He looked exhausted and was holding what looked like a metal crowbar. But the most peculiar thing about him was the large looming shadow, looking like a rabbit.

“Answer the question!” he gasped. He seemed to be panting, and didn’t look very healthy.

“I was in that stupid robot, when the thing tried to kill me!” she yelled, ponting at Funtime Freddy. “And I have questions, too. Who are you, where am I and what were you doing in my Grandpa’s workshop?!”

“Looking for him!” the kid shouted, pointing at Funtime Freddy, “And… wait, you were trapped in that thing? And you were threatened by it?”

“Umm… yeah, it was awful,” Millie said, slowly. The kid’s face lit up with excitement and he lowered the crowbar.

“Oh boy, this is great!” he squealed, “I’m Toby! What did you say your name was?”

“Uh, Millie,”

“Great! You’ll fit right in, wait till you meet everybody…”

“What are you talking about?” Millie asked, frustrated. “I just want to go home!”

“That’s what I was like when I first got here, but believe me, you’ll get used to it.”

“Get used to what?!”

“Well,” Toby hesitated, “I’m probably not the right one to explain it to you, you should probably ask Stanley.”

“Who’s Stanley? And what am I asking him about? And can I please leave?” Millie complained.

“Uh… well, umm, ok, just give me a second.” Toby reached into his coat and pulled out a small remote walkie talkie. He pressed a small button on it and held it up to his mouth.

“Stanley?” he spoke into it.

“Toby?” a voice replied, “Is everything ok back there?”

“Yeah, listen, we’ve got a… well, a bit of an issue.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, turns out there was… a person, inside the animatronic... ” The voice paused for a moment before replying.

“Who is it?”

“Some girl named Millie. Says that the robot tried to kill her.” Another pause.

“Ok, I’ll have Delilah pull us over.”

“Ok.” He put the walkie talkie back into his coat, and turned back to Millie.

“You can speak to Stanley in a minute.” Toby informed her. “Oh, and by the way, how did you end up in that thing’s stomach?” Millie hesitated before answering.

“Well, I didn’t want to be around my family, so I crawled in there to hide from them, but then the door locked and I couldn’t get out. There were these weird eyeball things on the inside that were looking down at me, and it was awful.” For a second, but only a second, something that looked like pity crossed Toby’s face, but as soon as it came, it was gone. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s with your shadow?”

“Oh, that, well it was an arcade game named Hide & Seek. My brother made me play it, and I couldn’t win, so I cheated and apparently the game didn’t like that, so it attached this to me.” he motioned to his back. “I was almost free of it but,” he sighed, “I was stupid, and cared more about beating the shadow than escaping it. Instead of quitting the game and being free of Shadow Bonnie, I decided to keep going, and now Shadow Bonnie is permanently melded to me. It won’t come off, and it drains my life energy, makes me tired and constantly out of breath. Once a month or so I have to take a day or so where I just don’t do anything so the shadow has nothing to feed off of and shrinks a bit, but I can never be fully rid of it.”

Millie was going to reply, but then, she could feel the truck slowing to a stop, and could hear voices outside. A few seconds later a large door at the back of the vehicle was opening up to reveal three people. A girl, with a large silver watch on her wrist. She had long brown hair and looked as though she was in early 20s or so. The same could be said of the man standing next to her, who was tall with a white shirt and a utility belt with a flashlight and a walkie talkie similar to Toby’s. He was wearing a navy cap and had a swollen arm. The third one was a boy who looked older than her, and was wearing an eye patch and a red sweater. The three of them were looking at her, looking both confused and expectant.

“YOU IDIOTS!” a voice came from the man’s arm, “YOU FOOLS SHOULD HAVE CHECKED THE THING BEFORE TAKING IT…”

“Shut up, Minireena,” the man says, walking towards Millie, and holding out a hand, “Hi, I’m Stanley. I apologise for any inconvenience we may have called you…”

“Because you’re all stupid…” the voice from his arm said. Stanley ignored it.

“..and I hope we can make up for any of it.”He had his hand held out for her to shake, but Millie wasn’t having it considering the fact that they had unintentionally kidnapped her.

“I just want to get back to my Grandpa,” she muttered to him, coldly. His face fell, and he pulled his hand back to his side.

“That is.. fair.” he said, looking somewhat disappointed. “However, would you mind if we waited until tomorrow? We’re hours from your home, and transporting… dangerous cargo,” his eyes wandered to Funtime Freddy. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving the robot vulnerable for an extended period of time, and we must get it back to the Warehouse. Would this be ok with you?” 

“You kidnapped me!” she exclaimed, “So I’m sorry if I’m a bit upset!”

“Understandable,” Stanley said, “Although would you really like to have this machine coming in the vicinity of your home once again?” This was what made Millie stop and think about it. Funtime Freddy was a homicidal danger to anyone around him. Shouldn’t she wait until they disposed of him?

“Fine,” she pouted, “But hurry up about it.”

“Brilliant!” Stanley pronounced, “Come on then, I’m assuming you won’t want to stay in the trailer for the rest of the journey?”

“Not really,”

“Well, then come on to the front of the van, it is far more comfortable up there.”

“Ok,” Millie replied, walking out of the truck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to address the timeline. FNAF lore can be very... restricting, when you want to tell a story, and I believe this is something Scott himself has experienced, so this is essentially my version of the FNAF world, so if something doesn't make sense, sorry, but this is how I'm doing things, I think this makes it less confusing.


	3. Night Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Millie is awakened in the middle of the night by a scream.

Walking out of the truck, Millie was slightly surprised to find that it wasn’t a truck at all, but a van with a trailer attached to it, so the front wasn’t a room, it was an entire van, which was fine with her.

The thing that really surprised her was that it was dark outside, and since she got into Funtime Freddy at two o’clock or so, she must have been in there for longer than she thought.

“What time is it?” she asked Delilah, who was wearing a large, black watch.

“Between eleven and twelve,” Delilah replied, almost instinctively. Millie thought that this was an odd way of saying it, especially since she didn’t even check her watch, but thought very little of it, as this meant that she had been trapped in that robot for over almost ten hours.

They got into the front of the van, with Delilah driving, the boy with the eyepatch in the passenger’s seat, asleep, and Stanley in the back of the van, working with a large pile of charts and papers. Millie was sitting next to him, trying to sleep. She wanted to get home and forget the entire ordeal happened. After a few hours, she looked over at Stanley’s paperwork out of boredom.

“What are you working on?” she asked him, tiredly.

“Sightings of the strange, or the paranormal,” Stanley replied, which wasn’t what Millie had expected. From where she was sitting, it just looked like paperwork and charts, but when she looked closer, she noticed that they were actually newspapers and what appeared to be Stanley’s own notes.

“What are they for?” Millie questioned, now genuinely interested.

“We’re trying to find where these things are so that we can track them down and retrieve them.” Stanley said this as though it was the most simple thing in the world, and it only made Millie more confused.

“Why?”

“So we can stop them from hurting people.”

“Does that really work,” Stanley looked taken aback by this.

“Well, of course it does, Millie. You wouldn’t be here if it didn’t.” Oh, yeah, of course, she thought, they had saved her from Funtime Freddy. After this, they sat in silence for a few minutes, before Millie worked up the courage to tell them something.

“Uh, thank you,” she muttered, quickly, “You guys saved my life.”

“That’s quite alright, Millie,” Stanley reassured, “That’s why we do this. You see Pete over there,” He pointed to the boy in the eyepatch, sitting in the passenger’s seat, “We just barely saved him from a curse put on him by an animatronic fox. It sounds absurd, but it makes for a rather good story. We met when we were in a town, looking for traces of an animatronic who, according to Fazbear Entertainment company emails that we managed to get a hold of, was moved to this location for reports of being “cursed”. However, we were in town less than an hour before we accidentally ran over somebody with the van. The kid turned out to be Pete, and with what seemed to be his last breath, he said that he “Had to get to Foxy”. I was going to have Delilah slip away to get the animatronic before it escaped, but then Pete’s brother appeared, and wouldn’t stop talking about how they had to stop the “curse” and we knew something was wrong. So we spoke to him, and he told us that Foxy, the animatronic, had cursed Pete to lose his eye and his arm. His mother had signed him up as an organ donor, and everyone had assumed him dead, and we barely made it there before the surgeons began operating. It was seen as a miracle, but Pete wasn’t dead. The curse was keeping him alive, if barely. While we were trying to save him, his brother had gone to find the animatronic, but,” he suddenly looked very unhappy, “it was gone. Nobody knew what had happened, and our only lead is a large cloaked figure that was seen near the robot. So we saved his life.” He smiled. “So you see, we can really help people.” At this, he looked back to his papers, leaving Millie to think this over.

He had told her this 24 hours ago, she would have laughed, but after her encounter with Funtime Freddy, she had changed her mind entirely.

While she was thinking about this, she heard Stanley muttering, “Poor girl" when looking at the newspapers, and she looked over.

“What’re you reading?” she asked.

“This,” he showed her the article, showing a school and large class, with a picture of a small girl beside it. “Class claims they saw a girl turn into scrap metal in front of their eyes. Apparently she had recently had this massive makeover, and then reappeared the next day looking normal again. The whole thing was chalked up to a mass hallucination.” Millie read over the article. It was short, and looked as though they were trying not to say too much. The girl wasn’t even named.

“Oh, Delilah, it’s ten past, I should take the wheel.” Stanley called to the front of the van, as Delilah pulled over and they swapped position, but Millie didn’t notice, as she had already fallen asleep.

* * *

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH”

Millie woke with a start at a loud scream from the other side of the van. She looked round and noticed Delilah, crouched down in the corner of the room, holding her head in her hands.

“Delilah!” Millie screamed, “What’s wrong, what’s going on, are you ok?!”

“ELLA!” Delila screeched, “ELLA, LEAVE ME ALONE, PLEASE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Delilah was lying on the floor of the van, shaking and flailing her arms around, swiping at things that didn’t seem to be there.

“STANLEY! PETE!” Delilah screamed. “HELP ME! PLEASE, HELP, IT’S ELLA, IT’S ELLA!” Delilah began to cry, and Pete was asleep, with Stanley still driving the van.

“Pete, Stanley! Delilah, she’s having a heart attack or something, guys, help!” Millie shook Delilah, and tried talking to her.

“Delilah, what’s going on?” Delilah turned to her, and she noticed that she had tears in her eyes.

“MILLIE! MILLIE, PLEASE TELL ME YOU CAN SEE HER!”

“See her?! See who?!”

“ELLA! ELLA, SHE’S HERE, SHE’S HERE AND SHE’S COMING FOR ME, PLEASE MILLIE, TELL ME YOU CAN SEE HER!”

“I can’t see anything, Delilah, what am I supposed to be looking for?!”

“THE ELLA DOLL!” Delilah hung her head and braced for an impact that never seemed to be coming. Millie didn’t know what to do, so she turned around and ran to Stanley and yelled.

“Stanley, Stanley, it’s Delilah, there’s something wrong!” But Stanley didn’t reply. He seemed completely unaware that anything was wrong.

“Stanley, STANLEY!” And then he noticed it. She would have missed it if his hair hadn’t been as short as it was or if she hadn’t been in such a panic to communicate with him, but she noticed it anyway. He was wearing earplugs.

She reached for them and pulled one out, and the effect was instant, Stanley, cringed and held his hand to his ear.

“Millie?!” he yelled over Delilah’s screaming. Then a look of realisation hit him. “OH, we haven’t told you about Ella yet, have we? You don’t have earplugs, so, umm…” he looked around until his eyes fell on a small box. He reached toward it, and pulled out two small black objects, handing them to her. “Here! These are normally Toby’s, but he’s guarding the robot tonight, so he doesn’t need them. I’ll explain everything in the morning, ok?!” Millie wasn’t ok with that at all, but Stanley had to drive, Toby was in the trailer, Delilah had apparently been driven mad and she didn’t feel comfortable talking to Pete after hearing about what happened to him, she took the earplugs and put them in.

She could no longer hear Delilah’s screams, but she couldn’t sleep. Her eyes kept wandering back to her, lying there, screaming for someone to help her. It was horrible, and she didn’t know how Stanley could just ignore it. She had to sit there for over an hour, watching Delilah scream, until she finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Millie woke that morning to Pete sitting in the back of the van with her, and Stanley asleep in the passenger seat, with Delilah driving.

“Morning!” Pete greeted. “I don’t think I’ve properly greeted you yet, I’m Pete.” He held out a hand, but she didn’t take it. She was looking at Delilah with amazement. Mere hours ago she had been screaming in the back of the van, and yelling about someone named Ella, but now, she looked like she was perfectly fine, driving the van. Could she have dreamt the whole ordeal up?

“Delilah?” she asked, breathlessly.

“So, Stanley told me you saw one of my… meltdowns, last night.” Delilah replied. “I’m… I’;m sorry you had to watch that.” Pete pulled his hand back at this, realising the gravity of the situation.

“It was terrifying.” Millie admitted, “You were screaming about someone called Ella, and crying on the floor, and you wouldn’t stop, no matter what.”

“It’s because of Ella.” Delilah explained. “Once, I bought a doll that was supposed to tell the time, and set an alarm for 1:35, so it would wake me up for work. But it didn’t work, and instead, every night at 1:35, Ella torments me. She would have had me killed if it wasn’t for Stanley. Ella had driven me to an abandoned office room, where I had… I had tried to kill myself to escape her.” She looked on the verge of tears, but ignored it, and just kept going, “And so I’m here to make sure that nothing like that happens to anyone again. I’m sorry if I scared you, Millie, but I’m fine now.”

Millie thought about what she had heard. About Toby, who had had his life drained by a shadow just because he played a game. About Pete, who was run over and had his arm and eye cursed because he encountered an animatronic fox. About Delilah, who was driven to the brink of insanity every night, just because she set an alarm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm enjoying this.


	4. The Warehouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Millie arrives at the Warehouse and helps store away Funtime Freddy.

After witnessing Delilah last night, Millie didn’t want to talk to her much more. It was awful, as though she was being tortured.

Millie wanted to just sit there for a while, but Pete kept trying to make conversation, and Millie wasn’t really in the mood for it. Nonetheless, she tried to talk to him in the hope that eventually he would be quiet.

After about another half hour, they arrived at a small forest. It was only then when Millie realised that she had no real idea where they were going.

“Where are we going?” she asked Pete.

“We’re going back to the Warehouse,” Pete answered, “It’s like our headquarters of sorts, but really, it’s exactly what it sounds like, a repurposed Warehouse. We store dangerous artefacts there while Arthur tries to figure out how to purify them or remove the dark energy.”

“Aurthur?”

“Yeah, he’s the one who… founded us? I’m not sure if such a poorly defined group can have a founder, but he was the first of us. He’s a priest, and he was sent to some hospital to help a patient who was seemingly immortal. After ignoring the pleas of the hospital staff, he brought the patient to a distribution centre to cure him. I don’t know what he was hoping to accomplish, but apparently the body exploded, and the evil with him was released out into the world, and began to infect different objects. I don’t know if you’ve heard my story yet, have you?”

“I have. You mean where an animatronic cursed you to lose an eye and an arm?”

“Yeah, apparently the reason that the robot was able to, was because the patient infected it. The Man In Room 1280, they called him. Still haven’t been able to figure out who he was before ending up in the hospital. Anyway, you can ask Arthur himself if you want, we’re almost here.” At this, Millie looked out the window, and squinting, saw a grey building through the trees. As they got closer, she noticed a large black entrance, large enough for the van to fit inside.

“Almost there,” Delilah informed, “Mind telling Toby?”

“Sure,” Pete reached for the walkie talkie, pressing the button and speaking into it, “Hey, Toby,” Millie heard a yawn from the device.

“Yeah?” Toby’s voice asked, tiredly.

“We’re almost home, be ready.”

“I will.” Pete took his finger off the button and put the walkie talkie back in his pocket, turning back to Millie, “Oh, and by the way, would you mind not… touching anything?”

“Why not?” Millie questioned, slightly annoyed.

“Well, I should probably be more specific. There’s a room where we keep a ton of cursed or dark objects, we call it the Pile Room. Everything in there is extremely dangerous, so try not to touch anything in there.”

“Oh, ok, that’s fair.” At this point they were right outside the Warehouse, and Delilah had stopped the van.

“Would one of you get out and open the door?” She requested.

“Sure,” Pete answered. He got out of the van and walked toward the building, opening a much smaller door that was next to the larger one meant for vehicles with a key he had. After a few seconds, the other door began opening upwards, and Delilah drove the van through it. After they had entered, the door closed behind them and they got out of the van.

“Can you help us get the animatronic into the Pile Room, Millie?” Delilah requested.

“Which room is that?” Millie asked. Around her was a large wall with doors along it, and a staircase along the wall.

“That one there,” Delilah pointed. “Just help Toby lift it in there, poor boy will never manage himself.” Millie got out of the van and walked around to the trailer. By the time she walked around, it was already open, and Toby was standing there, frantically pushing Funtime Freddy toward the door. It honestly would have been hilarious if not for the massive shadow, looming behind him, smiling creepily.

“You need some help with that?” Millie asked him.

“Yes… please…” Toby panted. Millie walked over to the animatronic and tried to help Toby lift it. It was just as heavy as she had expected, and if not for Toby’s weakness, they would have just barely been able to move it.

“Delilah… can we have… some help…” they called. After a few minutes, Delilah appeared at the door to the trailer and helped them lift it out, moving it out of the vehicle and moving toward the room.

Delilah kicked open the door, and Millie was surprised at how small it was, looking like a repurposed closed, if slightly bigger. Inside, there was a mirror, a pile of paper plates, a costume of a large, black bird costume and a large, yellow chicken with a bib saying “Let’s Eat!” and a plate with a cupcake on it. They set Funtime Freddy down in the middle of the room, careful not to touch any of the other objects.

“What is all this stuff?” Millie asked.

“Well, that mirror,” Delilah pointed, “Supposedly watched a man murder his family. This animatronic,” she pointed at the chicken, “Was possessed by the ghost of a girl named Susie. This,” she pointed at the large bird costume, “Was a costume used in a horror project by a kid named Nole, and it stalked him, trying to make him admit to bullying a girl when he was younger, and when he did, it went back to being a regular costume. Arthur thinks we’ve already purified it, or rather, Nole did by apologising to who he had bullied, but he wants to keep it here just to be sure, and these,” she pointed to the paper plates, and the put her hand down, “Well, actually, we have no idea what’s wrong with these, but they were found in a laboratory experiment with haunted objects, so Arthur thinks they could be dangerous. Oh, speaking of which, you should probably go talk to Arthur, he’ll be in his study, Toby’ll take you there.”

“Sure,” Toby replied, “But afterwards, I need to go to bed, Shadow Bonnie’s getting stronger, I can feel it.” While they were walking to Arthur’s study, Millie had a question that she had desperately wanted to ask all of them, but thought it kind of insensitive, but she wanted to know badly enough that she disregarded it now.

“What does it feel like?” she asked him, quickly.

“What?” he asked, confused.

“Shadow Bonnie,” Millie replied, cautiously, “What’s it like having it stuck to you?” Toby looked like he had never really thought about it before.

“It’s like… you constantly feel sick, and never have very much energy. And our life force is directly tied, so if I die, the Shadow Bonnie dies, so we have, kind of a… reluctant agreement that if he doesn’t get me killed, I won’t get him killed. And things that would normally make someone feel full, or give them lots of energy, is split between him and me, so if I eat a ton, then he gets bigger and gains more control over me, so I try not to eat much.”

“That sounds awful,” Millie replied, sympathetically.

“It is,” Toby admitted, “But with these guys, it’s not too bad.”

“What, Stanley, Pete and Delilah,”

“And Arthur,” Toby added, “I know it sounds stupid, but they’re like a family to me. They tried to, and are still trying to, help me with Shadow Bonnie, and I can never repay them for that. So in return, I’ve been helping them. And it paid off, didn’t it.”

“How?” He smiled.

“We got to save you, of course! Also,” he looked apprehensive, but enthusiastic nonetheless, “I get it if you want to go home, but at least consider staying, it’ll be nice to have somebody new around.”

“I’ll… I’ll consider it.” Millie said, and for once, she meant it. She liked Toby, for what it was worth, with his boundless enthusiasm for everything, despite literally having his life energy drained by darkness.

“Here we are,” he motioned to a door, and pushed it open, “Hi Arthur!”

“Hello, Toby,. Did things go well? Oh, and who is this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toby is just pure. I'm going to expand things, and I really want to do Into The Pit at some point, but for now I need to get Millie acquainted with the rest of the cast.
> 
> Next Chapter: Arthur Does Indeed Exist


	5. Arthur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Millie decides whether to stay with the group or return to her Grandpa.

Millie walked into Arthur’s study with Toby, and was greeted by a grey-haired man with brown eyes, sitting at a desk at the other side of the room.

“Oh, and who is this?” the man asked.

“Arthur, meet Millie,” Toby introduced, “We, err… accidentally kidnapped her. She was trapped inside the robot when we took it.”

“And did you manage to obtain Funtime Freddy,” the man asked, standing up from his desk.

“You know his name?” Millie interrupted, surprised. The man looked at her.

“Yes, I know who Funtime Freddy is.” he told her, “I found some blueprints in a Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and our dear Minireena was able to back up these claims. We were able to track it to the location that Stanley used to work, and heard from the locals that a man had left the building with the robots hiding inside him. The man managed to eject the robots into the sewers, and then we lost track of them. It was only recently that we caught wind of Funtime Freddy at a pizzeria, which had burned down quite a few years ago. Speaking of which” he turned to Toby, “What did you guys find?”

“Well, we found that the robot had been seen at a junkyard,” Toby explained, “But when we went to find it, apparently an old man who was well known in the area for being a collector of sorts had taken it.”

“That’s my Grandpa,” Millie mentioned.

“Right, well, we found the robot in his shed, and we had already taken it and we're halfway home by the time the door opened and Millie was inside”

“Thank you, Toby, I wish to have a word with Millie, so you can go now if that’s ok?” Arthur requested, kindly.

“Sure,” Toby smiled at Millie, and walked out of the door.

“So, Millie, my name is Arthur. I sort of run this group, and we needed that machine of your Grandpa’s. Filled to the brim with dark energy, and I wish to fix it. I apologise that my friend accidentally took you as well, and I offer you the opportunity to return home and never think of this whole ordeal ever again. However, I wish for you to know that we can always use another pair of hands around here, and you would be much appreciated if you wanted to stay. I understand completely if you do not, the decision is yours.” Millie thought for a few moments, before asking him something.

“How did this whole group… form, or come together? Just out of curiosity.” She asked.

“Well, I was sent to a hospital in order to help a man there who would not die,” Arthur began, “I brought him to a distribution centre, where he finally did die, but I had made a terrible mistake. This man was pure evil, and infected the objects around him, which were then distributed around. I had to stop it, but in the process, my adopted daughter Ruby… she was killed by a creature known as the Stitchwraith. A creature I accidentally empowered. So for just over a year now, I’ve been looking for these objects in order to purify them. To fix them so they don’t hurt anyone, and in the process, quite a few people have joined my cause. Did they tell you how they ended up here?”

“I know that Toby had Shadow Bonnie attached to him by an arcade game,” Millie answered, “I know that you saved Delilah from killing herself in an office, and I know that you ran over Pete and tried to help him with a curse, but I don’t know about Stanley.”

“Well, Stanley was the first one to join my cause. I found him just outside an animatronic rental facility, and he was begging for someone to help him. He was dying, and had dozens of tiny dolls inside him. They had been trying to escape the facility, and were using him as a puppet to do so. I had to try to rush him to a hospital, but he wasn’t going to make it. However, one of the Minireenas, the dolls inside him, had remembered that Stanley had shown her genuine affection the first time she appeared, and tried to keep him alive and drive off the others. In the end, we managed to get them out of him, but one remained, and Stanley was ok with this, having struck a sort of friendship with it. You see, we have saved lives with this job. Delilah, Stanley, Pete, Toby, you and another boy named Nole. If you wish for us to take you home, that is fine, but the Warehouse has more than a few spare rooms if you would like to stay.” Millie was conflicted.

“Can I have some time to think about it?” she asked.

“Take all the time you need. I daresay you’ll be hungry, Delilah’s making breakfast if you’d like some.”

“Thank you,” Millie walked toward the door, pushing it open and walking out. Outside, she could see Stanley through the van window, beginning to wake up and getting out of the vehicle.

“Good morning, Millie,” he called, “Are you ok? After last night, I mean, did Delilah explain Ella to you?”

“Yeah, she did.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine.” Truthfully, Millie wasn’t ok at all. She kept thinking back to Delilah, terrified and screaming for help on the floor of the van. Of how she was completely unable to help her. “Anyway, do you know where breakfast is?”

“Sure, it’s in here,” Stanley answered, walking towards one of the doors. He pushed it open and the two of them walked into what appeared to be a cross between a kitchen and a living room. Delilah was making toast next to the cooking equipment, and Toby sitting next to a large brown table eating cereal. At the other side of the room, Pete was sitting on a couch, playing something on a TV. “Morning, Delilah.”

“Morning Stanley,” Delilah replied, “Cereal?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“And what about you, Millie?” Delilah asked.

“I’m vegan, I’ll just take toast, thank you.” Millie replied, sitting down at the table next to Toby, as Delilah popped the toaster down.

“Pete?” Delilah called over to him, “What’ll it be for you?”

“Umm… I'll just take an orange.” Pete replied, not taking his eyes off the screen. Delilah picked up an orange from a fruit bowl.

“Here, catch,” she called, throwing over to him, causing him to turn around. The orange hit him in the eye, but Pete just ignored it, beginning to peel the orange.

Millie didn’t know what to say, the whole atmosphere was just so… pleasant. Breakfast had never been like this with her parents. Mealtimes certainly weren’t like this with Grandpa, although that was mostly Millie’s fault. Not even lunch with Dylan was as enjoyable as this was, things were just… enjoyable.

“So,” Toby asked, eagerly, “Are you staying?” Merely 5 minutes ago, Millie would have said that she was thinking about it, but now…

“I think so, Toby. I think so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anybody know what Ralpho is? This may seem insignificant, but I want to cover Bunny Call at some point and I'm very confused as to just what he is. Initially I thought he was just another animatronic, but then I noticed that the book said he was bleeding at one point. And then there's the fact that he was able to zap Bob through a door somehow, and when we really come down to it, we don't even really know his motivation. I was going to just say he wanted to kill people, but when Bob initially tries to cancel the bunny call, Ralpho isn't violent or anything, so maybe he just REALLY wanted to do the bunny call? And at the end it mentions how the guy who was meant to control Ralpho slept in, so it couldn't just be a guy in a costume. I don't know, just confused.


	6. Building A Connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Millie and Toby bond.

“So,” Arthur began, standing in front of the group, holding a newspaper. They were sitting at the kitchen table with Arthur in front of them, telling them where they were going to look for their next cursed object. “Stanley found this article in a newspaper from a nearby town. Apparently, a girl named Sarah was seen bizarrely transforming into a pile of scrap metal. There were over twenty witnesses, yet upon police investigation, the event was deemed a mass hallucination due to the girl appearing again the next day, with nothing wrong with her. I need you guys to try and find out what’s going on, because Stanley and I suspect it has something to do with these.” He held up a sketch of what appeared to be a circle of metal with a small red light on it. Most of them appeared confused, but Millie recognised it immediately.

“I recognise that” she told Arthur.

“What?” he responded, confused. “Where from?”

“There’s something that looks like that in Funtime Freddy’s stomach.” she answered. Arthur looked surprised.

“Well, I suppose that would make sense. You see, this is a sound illusion disk. They were used by some of the animatronics to cause hallucinations or to distract people, and Minireena has confirmed that the animatronics that she knew had them built-in. We believe that this was used to cause the illusion of Sarah turning into metal, and if so, then that disk will either be filled with agony, or it will have to be being operated by someone. I need you to find it and bring it back here if that is the cause, but if not, then find out what is. This is somehow connected to a cursed or haunted object, and I need just to bring it here. Pete,” he turned to Pete, “Would you mind coming with me to help get the disk out of Funtime Freddy?”

“Sure,” Pete answered, beginning to stand up from the table. As he stood up, the chair behind him tipped over, causing him to fall on his arm. “Agh,” he complained, trying to get up. Millie supposed that this must be the curse Stanley had told her about, that he would injure his eye and his arm. Delilah was reading a novel and Stanley had left to go to work. Something that Millie had forgotten was that they still had to live, which was why Delilah and Stanley both had jobs, with Delilah working at a fast food restaurant and Stanley working at a grocery store. It had initially surprised her, but it made sense. After all, they did need some kind of income to fund their expeditions.

“Ok, guys, I’m having to go in a few minutes,” Delilah began, closing her novel, “Lunch is in the fridge, just microwave it, and tell Pete not play that stupid game all day.” Toby nodded as she left the room, then turned to Millie.

“If you weren’t doing anything today, which you probably aren’t, because you didn’t know you’d be here, would you want to see my collection?” Toby asked her. Millie was going to refuse, but curiosity got the better of her.

“Collection?” she asked, “What do you mean collection?”

“You’ll see!” Toby replied, excitedly, “It’s in my room, come on.” Millie followed Toby out of the kitchen and up a flight of stairs, turning to a door that he had opened and walking through. The room was the antithesis of what Millie would have liked. Every wall was littered with lights and there was a bright yellow bed in the corner.

“What’s with the lights?” Millie asked, shielding her eyes.

“Well, apparently it weakens Shadow Bonnie, and I like it anyway, so it’s useful.” he answered, motioning to the large shadow. He was right, as it seemed to be cringing in such a bright light. He then pointed at a large cabinet in the middle of the room. “Anyway, look at this!” Millie’s eyes began to adjust to the light, and she could see more clearly, looking at the cabinet.

She wasn’t a very positive person, but she had to admit, the cabinet was amazing. It had small figures of people and monsters, all made out of different materials. They were all different scenarios, scenarios that Toby had seemingly re-created using these models.

“This is incredible,” she praised, inspecting them, “You made all these?”

“Yeah!” Toby answered, “They’re re-creations of things that the group has done. Look,” he pointed to a model of a man talking to a women, and a large, black feathered figure hiding behind a bush, “That’s a time when we helped someone called Nole to escape the Blackbird, this” he pointed at a sea of identical dolls, and one fighting off the others, along with a man lying behind it, “is when our Minireena saved Stanley from all the other dolls, and this,” He pointed at a model of four people, one holding mirror, to see their reflection take form as a monster, a taller one holding one back from a pile of paper plates and one reading through some papers, “Is the time we searched Phineas Taggart’s lab!”

Millie admired the scenes, created with clay, metal and different household items. There was a man and a woman, standing over the body of a boy, blocking him from what appeared to be doctors. There was a stick figure standing next to a stretcher with what looked like a zombie standing next to him, with a small boy staring at them from afar. Eventually, her eyes fell on one scene in particular…

“This one,” she began, pointing at a scene of a boy standing in a room with large scenery around him, looking at a large shadow cast upon the wall, drawn in black marker, with two bunny ears, “What’s this one?”

“This one is, umm… mine.” Toby tried to explain, “This is when I got Shadow Bonnie stuck to me forever. A moment where…” he trailed off. Millie didn’t know what to say, but if Shadow Bonnie was anything like Funtime Freddy it would have been awful. She put her arm around him, and smiled. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.” Toby finished, “The group saved me, and I don’t have to think about that again. More importantly, I want to know if you’ll help me with something.”

“With what?” Millie asked, genuinely interested.

“Over here,” Toby walked toward a desk, in the opposite corner to the bed. He pointed at a small figure, one that appeared to be made out of plasticine. It was wearing black, and had long, dark hair, with small pieces of jewelry made out of metal along its wrists. She recognised its face.

She recognised its face, because it was her face.

“You’re making one of me,” she said, excitedly. She genuinely thought that his models were interesting, and to know that he would make one of her was exciting.

“Yeah!” Toby confirmed, returning to his enthusiastic self. Millie looked at him, and the contrast between the joyful and excited boy with the dark, looming shadow was astounding. “And I’m not just making one, I want you to help me. That is, if you want to.”

“Of course!” she answered.

“Really?” Toby said in disbelief. “That’s great! I’ll show you how, look…”

* * *

They had spent the rest of the day slowly modelling the scene of Millie stepping out of Funtime Freddy and meeting Toby for the first time. It was harder than Millie had thought, but Toby’s company made things more fun. He had a boundless enthusiasm for everything, and despite the fact that they only managed to make the model of him and Funtime Freddy’s head, Millie still felt accomplished looking at it.

“I have a question for you, though,” Millie asked, turning to him, “Why me? Why not have Pete, or Stanley, or Delilah help you with these?”

“Well, Stanley and Delilah are gone all day,” Toby began, “And I don’t think Pete likes my models that much. I think he finds the figures creepy? I’m not sure. But even more than that,” he smiled, “I like you, Millie. I’m not sure why, because you’re dark, and depressed and all, but still, I do. You’re like… the sibling I always wished I had. My real brother was the worst, but you’re nice.” The two of them looked at their handiwork, proudly, before hearing a call from downstairs.

“Toby! Millie! Dinner’s ready!” Delilah called. The two of them left the room, and Millie, for the first time since Dylan, felt that she had made an actual friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed, and we're going to be covering the plot of To Be Beautiful very soon. I like Millie and Toby being friendly with each other, but this is like my third re-write because it kept coming off as romantic for some reason, and that isn't my intention. I specifically want the two of them to be like siblings, as I have an idea for a (maybe) love interest later on. I also kinda want to see the whole group bonding, because all of them come from kinda tragic or dysfunctional families, and I kinda think it fits that they're happier with each other than they were originally. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed.


	7. The Lonely Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group stop at a nearby Freddy Fazbear's Pizza

Two days later, the five of them began their journey to a few towns over. Nobody had to be in the trailer, as they weren’t carrying any dangerous equipment, but they still brought the trailer, as they weren’t sure whether they would be bringing back one tiny disk, or kidnapping the disk’s commander.

Pete was in the passenger seat discussing something with Delilah, and Stanley‘s Minireena seemed interested, meaning he had to hold his arm out so she could speak. Millie and Toby were in the back, telling each other about their lives before their encounter with the animatronics.

“I had a brother, Conner,” Toby began, eagerly, “He… he wasn’t the best. Actually, no, I’m going to be honest, he was kinda the worst. He always beat me at different types of games and things, and then he would hold his victory over my head. He’s kinda the reason I ended up with Shadow Bonnie, but I try not to hold that against him, he probably didn’t know that a demon would attach itself to me if I lost.”

“What did he say when he saw Shadow Bonnie?” Millie asked.

“Well, initially nobody knew it was there, because it was kinda like, invisible or something. But whenever I told the game I wanted to continue rather than to quit, Conner was able to see Shadow Bonnie, and he… well, he wasn’t happy, to put it lightly. He told me to leave him alone, thought I was possessed or something. My dad agreed with him, and believe it or not, I was kinda happy to go. My real family never really liked me that much anyway, and Pete had already saved my life, so I went with them. What about you?”

“Well, it kinda started with Dylan,” Millie started, “He was my only friend at school, and I… I kinda fell in love with him? I mistook his platonic actions of friendship for signals of love, and when I found out that he was already taken, I sort of… yelled at him. I thought he was misleading me, but in retrospect, that wasn’t true. I was sulking, and then… then I climbed inside Funtime Freddy to escape from it all…” Toby was going to respond, but at that moment, the van stopped, and Pete got out.

“What’s going one?” Millie asked, “We can’t be there yet, are we?”

“No,” Delilah informed, unbuckling herself from the van and beginning to unlock the door. “But we like to check all the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza locations on our way around the towns, as they normally have something going on in them. Toby, here you go,” she reached into the front compartment and handed him a large mask. Toby pulled it on before she noticed that it was the mask of a blue bunny. Of course, it was to disguise his shadow to make it look normal.

Stanley pushed open the door to the van, and he, Millie and Stanley walked out. This was the first time Millie had seen one of these restaurants, and it wasn’t exactly what she had expected. It had a large sign with a picture of a brown bear with a top hat and bow tie on it. It reminded her of Funtime Freddy, only brown and less rusted. The sign didn’t look welcoming, though, in fact, the bear looked almost threatening, as though he was intimidating those below.

As they entered, they saw four animatronics playing on the stage. She recognised the chicken from the Pile Room, the bear from Funtime Freddy and the bunnie from Shadow Bonnie, and she assumed that the fox was Foxy, the one who had cursed Pete. As a waiter approached, Stanley whispered to them.

“Look around guys, and don’t mention anything to the staff.” As soon as the waiter approached, he changed his attitude and appeared innocent enough. “Hi, table for five please!” Minireena was staying completely silent.

The waiter brought them to a small boothe in the corner of the restaurant. There were kids at the front of the building, crowding around the animatronics, but Millie didn’t understand how they could be seen as happy or fun, especially after being trapped in one.

“Look at that thing,” Pete said, pointing toward a miniature version of Freddy that seemed to be roaming around the pizzeria, “Seems suspicious.”

“I’ll ask about it,” Stanley reassured, as the waiter returned to take their order. Millie couldn’t shake the feeling that the tiny roaming toys were watching them, but she tried to ignore it.

Just after they ordered, Delilah suggested that Millie, Toby and Pete went to look at the animatronics, signalling for them to check for anything unnatural. The three of them obliged, and went to look.

“Those things are freaky,” Millie commented, apprehensive looking at the animatronics.

“Your telling me,” Pete replied, chucking, “I almost had my eye ripped out by one,” Upon further inspection, the robots seemed to be working perfectly fine. They moved robotically, not smoothly the way Funtime Freddy had, and they repeated the same action over and over again, implying that they were incapable of thinking, or of doing anything using their own free will.

As they began to walk back to the table, Pete noticed one of the free-roaming Freddy toys walking around, and decided to go and have a look at it.

“You guys go on ahead,” he instructed them, “I’ll be back in a minute, I just want to check those toys, there’s something unnatural about them to me.” Millie and Toby obliged, and walked back to the table.

“Find anything?” Stanley whispered.

“Nothing,” Toby said, blatantly.

“They seem to be completely lifeless,” Millie added.

“That’s for the best, don’t want any more trouble, now would we? Wait, where’s Pete?”

“He went to look at those toys over there,” Millie said, gesturing to the Freddies walking about. Stanley cleared space on the table as their pizzas arrived, carried by another waiter, but before he could leave, Stanley asked him a question. “What are those roaming dolls?” he pointed toward the Freddy toys.

“They’re called Lonely Freddies,” the waiter explained, “They’re for kids at birthday parties who nobody wants to play with, and asks them questions to become their friend. We’ve even had reports of parents saying that our Lonely Freddies are so nice that their kids seem to have become better people due to their interactions,” he boasted the last line, as though he was proud of it, but it was a huge red flag for the guests in front of him, who began to talk as he walked away.

“I’m going to check on Pete,” Millie said. It had been about five minutes since he left, he should be back by now, right?

“Me too, we’ll be back in a second,” Toby replied, following after her. When he had caught up, they began to talk, “What do you think those Lonely Freddies are doing here?”

“I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about them,” Millie’s voice was shaky, and she was worried about Pete. What if the bear did something to him before they got to him.

As they turned a corner they found themselves in front of a door market “Staff Only”, and despite the instruction, they had seen Pete pursuing the Lonely Freddy in this direction. Without hesitation, they pushed through the door and into the next room.

The scene was horrifying. Pete was standing there, staring down at Lonely Freddy, who was asking him questions. Pete seemed to be in a trance of some sort, and was answering everything the Lonely Freddy said.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“My favourite colour is red.”

“What’s your favourite flavour of food.”

“Watermelon.”

“ **_What would you do if you had to hurt someone you love?_ ** ”

Millie and Toby watched in horror as Pete stood there, answering question after question, oblivious to the world around him.

“Pete!” Toby called, shouting directly into his ear, “Pete, snap out of it, it’s us! Delilah and Stanley are waiting, Pete, is something wrong?!”

But Millie wasn’t wasting any time on trying to talk him down. She had seen what these machines were capable of, and in her opinion, acted accordingly. With one swing of her arm, she knocked the head of the Lonely Freddy off, and Pete’s trance broke.

“Toby… Millie… what happened?” He said, rubbing the back of his head. “That… that toy. It was trying to hypnotise me, that toy was trying to replace me!”

“Calm down Pete…” Toby began.

“No!” Pete said, grabbing the Lonely Freddy’s head off the floor, “I don’t know how, but our minds connected there for a moment, and I know what it was trying to do. It was trying to body swap with me!” He sounded insane, but strangely, Millie believed him. His trance had been more than just unsettling, it had been horrific, and these things seemed to have had malicious intent from the start.

Suddenly, they heard a rumbling noise. It was faint at first, but they could hear it more and more clearly the longer it went on. It was coming from a door behind them, and without hesitation, Pete opened it.

Inside, where about two dozen of the Lonely Freddies, all crying out in their tiny voices for help.

“These… these are people.” Pete gawped, looking around the small room, “These are people switched with the Lonely Freddies! We have to save them, we have to help them. Guys, take one each, we’ll come back for more in a minute.”

Slowly, they each lifted a Lonely Freddy, and took it toward the exit to the room. They discretely left the “Staff Only” section, and returned to Stanley and Delilah.

“Where have you guys been? The pizzas are almost cold.” Stanley told them.

“Listen,” Pete began, “I know this sounds insane, but these Lonely Freddies are kids who have been body swapped, and there’s a whole room full of them back there in the staff only section.” The one he was holding called out, “Help,” with it’s tiny voice. “We have to help them.”

“Then we will,” Stanley looked serious now. “Here,” he held out his hand for the Lonely Freddy Pete was holding, and gave it to Delilah. The dolls were smaller than they looked, and all three of them could fit in her handbag, but room for more.

“See if you can get more of them,” Delilah requested, motioning to the Staff Only door.

The three of them went back in, this time with Delilah’s purse, and took as many as they could without the employees getting suspicious. They managed to fit eight in Delilah’s handbag, two inside Toby’s giant mascot head mask and held one each. They brought them back to the booth, leaving them with Stanley, who was able to fit their three inside Fazbear Entertainment goodie bags that they were handing out.

On their third trip back, however, they were met with a problem. Standing there, was a tall security guard, kneeling over the beheaded Lonely Freddy and looking through the cabinet of dolls that they had been taking from. As they tried to back away, he turned to them, revealing a name tag saying “Darren”.

“So, you three thought it would be fun to steal the property of Fazbear Entertainment and vandalise the place?” he said, pointing to the Lonely Freddy lying headless on the floor.

“Cut it, we know what you’ve been doing,” Pete accused, “You’ve been having Lonely Freddies steal the identities of kids, haven’t you?!” For a moment, the guard looked shocked, but then he gave them a smug smile.

“I’m only doing what Mr Afton told me to do,” he informed, ominously, “And I’m sorry to say that I can’t allow you three to ever leave this establishment again,” He shoved the three of them into the Lonely Freddy room, and shut the door. Pete immediately tried it again, but to his dismay, it was locked from the other side.

“Great,” he complained, “What do we do now?” His question didn’t last long, though, because only a minute or two later, the door opened again, revealing Delilah standing there.

“Quickly,” she told them, “Grab all the Lonely Freddies. Every one, we’ve managed to stop the ones roaming around the restaurant, and Stanley’s backed the trailer up right in front of the door. All we need is to save these kids.” She began to grab more of them, and before long, all of the toys were in their arms, and they made a mad rush for the exit.

“Hold it there!” a voice from behind them yelled, but none of them stopped to check who it was  as they bolted to the trailer. Millie was climbing inside when a hand grabbed her foot.

“You!” Darren yelled, angrily, “I’m not letting you do this! Return those toys immediately, or else!” But it was too late. Stanley had started driving, and the guard simply couldn’t hold on. By the time they had made it out of the car park and down the road, he was gone.

A few miles later, they pulled in at the side of the road, in an area shrouded with trees so that passers by wouldn’t notice them, and Stanley walked back to the trailer, holding two boxes of pizza that he had kept from the restaurant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, they've saved some people from the animatronics. To Be Beautiful is coming soon, but I thought I'd do this now, because I really like the Lonely Freddy story. Also, one of the dolls that they kidnapped was Alec, so he'll appear later on properly.


	8. Dreams Come True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group looks into a newspaper article of a girl turning into scrap metal.

For the rest of the journey, Millie and Toby stayed in the trailer. They needed somebody to guard the Lonely Freddies, and Pete didn’t want to be around them, so the two of them spent the rest of the trip inspecting them.

“These things are really weird,” Toby commented, “Like, what’s the point in body swapping with the kids? As far as we know, they never actually did anything malicious once they had human bodies, so why bother?”

Millie didn’t want to answer, and she never wanted to know who was doing this. The man… the Man In Room 1280, the one who was so evil that he corrupted everything around him, he was more than just evil, he was sadistic. This was cruel, and as she watched the Lonely Freddies wandering around the trailer, it hit her how messed up this really was.

These were  _ children _ . What kind of sick, twisted madman would do something this awful? And leaving them trapped forever inside a mere toy? That was terrible.

She thought of all the things she knew the man to have been responsible for. Toby’s shadow, Delilah’s psychological harassment at 1:35 AM, Stanley’s Minireena, Pete’s curse, dozens of innocent kids replaced with robots and Funtime Freddy’s existence, and those were only the ones she knew about.

As she was thinking, one of the Lonely Freddies wandered over to her, and just stood there, staring. It looked as though it was trying to say something, but just couldn’t, and all it could say was “help”.

“Who did this to you?” she asked it, picking it up. “Why would someone do something this sadistic?”

“Help,” it responded, in its tiny voice. That was an intentional design decision, Millie thought. Someone purposely made these dolls so that when someone was trapped inside of them, all they could say was help, and the thought disgusted her.

“I will,” she promised it, “I will help, just wait, when we get back, I promise I’ll help you.”

* * *

They had arrived in the town where Sarah lived by nightfall, and parked the van in a public parking area near the entrance to the school. The trailer was packed with pillows for them to sleep, and the Lonely Freddies seemed capable of just shutting themselves off without causing themselves any harm, but once her’s was asleep, Millie set the one that had approached her next to where she was sleeping. She had promised it that she would help, and she intended to keep that promise.

Delilah was still sleeping in the van, as she didn’t want to disturb anyone with her night terrors, and they had set an alarm to wake early the next morning, wanting to get back to the Warehouse as quickly as possible to start work on the Lonely Freddies.

The next morning, Stanley went to buy them all breakfast from a nearby service station, and the five of them ate at around 7am.

“Where will we find this Sarah girl?” Pete asked Stanley.

“We have an address, and we know what school she goes to, so it shouldn’t be too hard,” Minireena answered, “Although I don’t see why you bother, you all should just give up and submit to the machines…”

“That’ll do Minireena,” Stanley interrupted, turning to the rest of the group, “It’s Saturday, so the school will be closed, meaning that we can look for the disk in there. While somebody ll go there, someone needs to go and question Sarah. So, who’s doing what?”

“I don’t mind,” Pete responded, “I’ll do whatever.”

“Can I question Sarah?” Toby asked, enthusiastically.

“Sure,” Stanley confirmed, pulling a slip of paper out of his pocket, “Here, this is her address,” He handed the paper to Toby.

“I’ll go too,” Millie told them, standing up from her seat.

“Great, then Delilah and I’ll look for the disk in the school,” Stanley instructed, looking at the building they were parked beside. “Pete, would you look after the Lonely Freddies?”

“Ok Stanley,” Pete agreed, backing into the trailer. The Lonely Freddies were still active there, and wandering around. While they were locked in the Lonely Freddy room back at the pizzeria, Delilah had destroyed the system running all the Lonely Freddies, shutting down the ones roaming around the pizzeria. They had quickly learned, however, that they ones with people’s souls inside them seemed to be able to run indefinitely without any kind of power source.

Millie and Toby began walking out of the car park toward the road.

“So,” Toby began, eagerly, “What do you think’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Millie thought aloud, “I’d say it’s probably just the disk, the same way Stanley thinks. A haunted sound-illusion disk.”

* * *

An hour later or so they had reached Sarah’s house, and were standing outside, unsure of what to do.

“So…” Millie started, “...do we just walk on in and start asking questions?”

“I guess so,” Toby answered, walking toward the front door and knocking it. A few minutes later, a woman opened it and looked at them.

“Who are you?” she snapped, “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, hi!” Toby began, cheerfully, “We were looking for someone named Sarah, she doesn’t happen to live here does she?” The woman narrowed her eyes.

“You aren't more of those reporters, are you?”

“No, we aren't,” Millie answered. “We just want to speak to Sarah, who I assume you’re related to.” The woman stared daggers into her.

“Yes, she’s my daughter,” She spoke sharply and efficiently, “What do you want with her?” Toby was about to respond, when Millie cut him off.

“We’re investigators of the supernatural,” Millie lied, “We go around looking into instances of the unexplained or events that don’t make sense to try to understand them. We found an article in the paper about a mass hallucination involving your daughter, and we wanted to look into it.” It was technically the truth, only leaving out everything about Fazbear Entertainment and haunted objects and things like that. For a moment, it looked like the woman was going to slam the door on them, but then she sighed and opened the door.

“Come in,” she instructed, reluctantly. Millie and Toby looked at each other, and then stepped into the house. “Sit down,” The woman told them, pointing at a couch. They sat down, cautiously.

“Can we speak to you daughter?” Millie asked again.

“Yes, but I want your help,” the woman said, sitting on an armchair opposite them.

“With what?” Toby questioned.

“My daughter,” the woman explained, “It was the strangest thing. She was complaining that she looked ugly, and all of a sudden, all the popular girls at her school were crowding around her. Then, one day I came home to find a newspaper reporting her having turned into scrap metal in the eyes of her peers. I didn’t even hear it from her, Sarah’s personality and demeanor, it had all… changed, she was different. She acted differently, she seemed… almost unnaturally perfect. Before, she complained a lot about her appearance and wanted to be liked by her classmates, but now she seems completely content with herself as she is.” She looked them both in the eye. “I want you to look into it. This can’t be a coincidence and if you claim to have experience with the supernatural, then you should be able to figure things out.”

“We were hoping to,” Toby said, “And thank you for the information. Do you have any idea where we would find Sarah?”

“I assume she’s at the mall. But what do I know, she never tells me anything these days.” She looked bitter and frustrated, like she had been trying for something and continuously failed to succeed.

“Thank you,” Toby stood up, followed by Millie, and walked to the door, “Don’t worry, we’ll help you daughter.”   
  


“Please do,” the woman responded as they left the house.

* * *

“She looks… completely normal.”

Toby and Millie were standing in the mall, looking over at the other side of the centre stood a small, plump girl with frizzy brown hair and blue eyes. She was talking to a taller girl with brown eyes and braces, who seemed visibly uncomfortable with their conversation.

“Maybe the issue is more subtle than we had expected?” Toby suggested. They were watching her from the other side of the mall, and so far all she had done was talk to the other girl and gush about outfits in a nearby clothes store. Nothing suspicious, and certainly not anything to make them suggest that she had recently been turned to scrap metal.

“We could just talk to her,” Millie suggested, blatantly, “Or maybe we would have had to know her beforehand to notice a change in her behaviour. Either way, we have to approach her eventually.”

“Ok,” Toby agreed, as they began to walk toward her.

“Hi, you’re Sarah, right?” Millie began, approaching the girl.

“Yeah!” Sarah replied, excitedly, “That’s me!” Every word she said sounded overly-enthusiastic, but not the way Toby did, it sounded more… artificial, like she was desperately faking it.

“I’m Millie,” she told Sarah, “And this is Toby. We’re very interested in the supernatural and unexplained, and we heard that there was a mass hallucination recently involving your schoolmates claiming to have seen you break apart into pieces of metal. Could you shed some light on the situation?”   
  


“Of course!” Sarah began, “Well, I had recently tried a new look, attempting to be more pretty or beautiful, but it didn’t really work out for me! The other girls at my school mocked and teased me for my appearance, and me “turning into trash” was them making fun of me again for going back to my old look! I think they might have taken it too far when the news got involved, but it was never anything more than some harmless teasing!” As she said all this with a smile on her face, the other girl she was talking to was violently shaking her head.

“Sarah,” The other girl started, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Of course I am, Abby!” Sarah confirmed, “I’m great, there’s nothing wrong with me!” The other girl, Abby, seemed unsatisfied with this answer.

“I don’t believe you,” She informed Sarah, “I was there. I watched you falling to pieces, you fell, and then that necklace came off you and you turned to scrap metal and began running away.”

“Don’t listen to her!” Sarah told Millie and Toby, “She’s got an overactive imagination…”

“No, I haven’t, I watched you, you were dying!”

“I’m not going to have this conversation again!” At this, Sarah turned and started at Abby, looking almost threatening, “Whatever you think you saw wasn’t true, I can confirm it right now, as I’m here! I’m not dead, I’m not made of metal, I’m perfectly fine!” She turned back to Millie and Abby stepped away from her, with an expression that bordered on fear. “Sorry about that! Anyway, nothing supernatural here, everything’s fine!”

Millie and Toby were both unsettled by her at this point, and began to back away.

“Well, thanks for the information,” Millie said, apprehensively.

“Yeah, thanks, we’ll have to be going now,” Toby told her, as the two of them walked away.

* * *

That night Millie couldn’t sleep. Her Lonely Freddy was sitting next to the area she slept, shut off and by the looks of things, asleep, if you could call it that, considering that he was a machine.

Stanley, Delilah and Pete had searched the school all day, and come out completely empty handed. No sign of a sound illusion disk, no sign of any leftover scrap metal, not even any camera footage, it was all just… gone.

Millie lay awake for a few hours before getting up. There was no point just lying here, so she decided to go for a walk. It generally helped her think, and maybe it was just a part of her goth personality, but she liked the aesthetic of a town at night.

As she was walking around the town, she thought about everything that was going one. About the Ella doll that tormented Delilah every night. About the shadow that attached itself to Toby and would never leave him. About the curse that caused Pete to constantly injure himself. About the doll that was stuck inside Stanley’s arm. About all the children with their souls trapped within dolls that now resided inside their trailer. About Sarah, who had been affected in some unknown way by all of these events. And above all else, about the Man In Room 1280, who had caused all this. The man who was so evil that the effects of his malice were still hurting people even now.

As she was thinking about this, she walked past Sarah’s house, and noticed that all the lights were still on. Surely it wouldn’t be a problem if she went to have a look now? She was still confused as to what was going on, and she knew she couldn’t sleep easy until she got answers. Her curiosity got the better of her as she began to walk up Sarah’s path toward the front door. Somewhat reluctantly, she knocked it.

“Who is it?!” Sarah’s mother’s voice called from inside.

“It’s me, the supernatural girl, the one who was looking into the matter of your daughter?! I’m back!” Millie called in to her. There was a silence for a few seconds, with the mother seemingly deciding what to do next before coming to a decision.

“Come in!” At this, Millie tried the handle, finding it to be unlocked, and pushed the door open, stepping into the house. Inside, Sarah’s mother was sitting on the armchair, her head in her hands, with her eyes closed. “What do you want?”

“To help,” Millie informed her, blatantly, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Sarah,” The woman told Millie, “She came home tonight late, and when I scolded her, she told me it wasn’t my decision to make, and then said that she wasn’t friends with Abby anymore because they had had a row. I wasn’t happy with her, that she was being so rude to me as of late, but when I tried to tell her off, she yelled at me and simply went to her room on her own accord, all the while keeping a smile on her face.” She looked up at Millie, “Could you talk to her for me? I don’t think she wants to hear from me right now, and you did agree to help. Maybe there's nothing supernatural going on after all, and she’s just going through that rebellious teen stage of her life. Either way, she won’t listen to me, so please.”

Millie obliged, having nothing better to do really, and maybe this would bring her closer to figuring out what was going on. She walked up the stairs, and entered the door at the top.

Inside, Sarah was sitting on her bed, still smiling unnaturally. There was a pile of scrap metal in the corner, which Millie found suspicious, but besides that, it just looked like a normal person’s bedroom. The only exception was that the walls were littered with posters of famous pop idols and things like that, which Millie thought were horrible, but not unusual.

“Hi,” she said to Sarah, “I heard you and Abby had a row.”

“Well, don’t worry about it!” Sarah denied, “Everything’ll be fine!”   
  


“Why do you do that?” Millie asked, cringing.

“Do what?!”

“Smiling all the time, and sounding so enthusiastic. It’s unnatural, you need to show some emotion.” Sarah stared at her for a moment, and her grin began to fade.

“Is this better?” She said in a more monotone voice.

“I guess…” Millie mumbled. Honestly, it was as though Sarah had no idea of the basics of interacting with people. “Anyway, I still want to ask you about what happened…”

“Oh, don’t tell me you believe that rubbish.”

“Hey, I’m not judging you or anything!” Millie was starting to see why Sarah’s mother had thought there was something wrong, “It’s just, you go around acting strange and denying all these weird claims about you. I feel like you’re hiding something…” Millie trailer off. As she had said that last line, Sarah had defensively put her hand on the heart-shaped pendant around her neck.

“Well, I have nothing to prove to you,” she said, as Millie stared at her necklace. It was larger than seemed necessary, and had a small button on it. Millie thought of all that she knew about Sarah. Of her arguing with those around her. Of her obsession with beauty. Of her seemingly acting like a totally different person. Of the sound illusion disks that supposedly made her look like scrap metal. And of the necklace she wore, that seemingly came off when she became scrap metal...

And suddenly everything was clear.

Without hesitation, Millie grabbed the pendant from Sarah, and yanked it off her neck.

“NO!” Sarah screamed, as the chain holding the necklace together broke, leaving it in Millie’s hand. At that moment, Sarah began to mutate. Her small, plump neck grew long and thin, and her pudge fingers became extended and flexible. This wasn’t Sarah, Millie had never known the real Sarah. This was some animatronic abomination trying to take her place. “GIVE ME MY PENDANT!” The newly formed monster screeched, in an inhuman voice, but Millie was one step ahead of her. She held her arm out the nearby window.

“Come any closer and I drop this!” She threatened, “No more necklace, no more illusion. No more illusion, no more life. I want some answers and I want them now, so you’d better get talking. Who are you and what did you do to the real Sarah?!” The robot shot her a look of hatred, but reluctantly stepped backward.

“You can call me Eleanor.” She began, in her screechy, robotic voice, “Or at least, that’s what I told Sarah.”

“And what did you do to her?!” Millie was ready to destroy the necklace at any sign of violence from Eleanor, but she seemed a lot more level headed than the other animatronics she had encountered. Where Funtime Freddy seemed deranged and mad, and the Lonely Feddies were mindless and wandered aimlessly, Eleanor seemed… borderline intelligent, as though she knew what she was doing. There was no madness the same way there had been with Funtime Freddy, she was completely rational.

“Well, she had taken me from a junkyard across town,” Eleanor screeched, “When she got home, and night fell, I activated. Sarah seemed to enjoy my company, but she constantly complained that she wanted to be beautiful. So I told her that I would grant her wish. I told her that dreams come true, but I never said it would be  _ her _ dream. Then when she was asleep, replaced her body parts with metal, using that necklace to hide it and make her look more beautiful. But then,” The machine stopped her story to laugh to herself, “I knew the necklace would come off eventually, and when it did, Sarah was out of the picture, leaving me to take her place.”

“You mean she’s dead?!” Millie accused. At this, Eleanor paused before answering.

“Well, not entirely,” She informed, “But I bet she wishes she was. You see, at the junkyard I was damaged, and I could only activate at night. It was a horrible weakness, and one I did not know how to work around. However, when Sarah began to break apart, her soul never left those pieces of metal. Metal doesn’t have vital organs in it, or anything that could be damaged beyond repair so as to end Sarah’s life. No, he still exists, and her consciousness is still inhabiting those materials,” Eleanor pointed a long, thin finger toward the pile of metal in the corner of the room. Sarah… the real Sarah, “Her soul is still in that pile, in terrible suffering. And her agony powers me so I may be active during the day…”

Eleanor was cut off by Millie. She had never hated someone as much as she hated Eleanor right now, and she had jumped on her and was attacking the machine. Eleanor fell in surprise.

“YOU MONSTER!” Millie screamed, “HOW COULD YOU?!” However, it quickly became clear that Millie was no match for a huge animatronic. Eleanor pushed Millie off her and made a grab for the pendant, but Millie was faster. She threw the sound illusion disk on the floor and crushed it beneath her foot.

“NO, MY NECKLACE!” The robot screamed with rage, charging toward Millie, who made a dive for the door. Eleanor was right behind her, and grabbed her as she tried to escape, “NO! YOU’RE NOT ESCAPING HERE, YOU’RE NEVER ESCAPING HERE AGAIN!”

Millie resisted with all her strength, but the robot was far stronger than she was. As a last ditch effort to get away, she grabbed a lamp that was on the table next to her bed, and attempted to beat Eleanor with it, but it was no use. She was slowly strangling her, and there was nothing Millie could do about it.

With the last ounces of her strength, Millie through the lamp upward, hoping it would come down hard on Eleanor. However, the effect was far greater than she could have hoped, as the lamp hit the ceiling light and knocked it down.

The ceiling light fell from the roof and came mere inches from crushing Eleanor, and while it didn’t defeat her, it did cause her to drop Millie in order to shield herself from the destruction. Millie capitalised on the moment, and put all her anger and hatred into charging directly at Eleanor, but instead of hitting her or beating her, she pushed the robot toward the window, knocking her out of it.

The machine fell and as it hit the ground, her head and arms disconnected from her body, and Millie knew Eleanor wouldn’t be coming back from this, but Millie had a bigger concern right now.

She walked over to the pile of scrap in the corner, the real Sarah, and dropped to her knees. This was awful, it was just like the Lonely Freddies all over again, only now, she knew from Eleanor that Sarah was in terrible pain. She lifted one of the pieces and held it in her hand, before looking down, and making a promise.

“Sarah, I promise,” Millie told the pile of scrap, “I will put you back together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Dreams come true, Susie, dreams come true"
> 
> Yes the Bendy And The Ink Machine reference was intentional. Also, I have now incorporated the series most frustrating line, so that's fun. Alec and Sarah are both physically and mentally scarred from this, so they'll be interesting to write once I do "put them back together". I also want to build up Millie's hatred for William Afton after seeing all of his atrocities. Anyway, hope you enjoyed.


End file.
